Plugins & Widgets

Plugins and Widgets are optional types of content that can display additional content or provide additional functionality for your site. Contact the  COFA Web team to begin using these features.

Plugins

• Social Media plugins
  • • Facebook, Twitter & Google+ Social Widgets – Enabled by the COFA Web team. Allows visitors to share links to your pages or posts using the Facebook, Twitter and Google+ icons displayed above the footer.  For example, Facebook’s “Like” feature.

      

    • Twitter Timeline embed using the MU Unfiltered plugin & HTML Widget This is a replacement for the Mini Twitter Plugin, which wasn’t accessible because we couldn’t change the color contrast of the link text. This new option also gives us a greater ability to customize the look and behavior of your feed, such as setting the number posts, display height & width, and adding scrollbars. You will still need to follow these instructions to make images in Twitter posts accessible.

• Tables – The TablePress Plugin allows you to easily build data tables on your WordPress site. Please see the accessibility instructions on this page before publishing your table. If you need the TablePress Plugin activated on your site contact cofawebmaster@austin.utexas.edu.
• Footer Icons – by request, the Web Team can also add social media icons to the bottom of your website linking to your Facebook page, Youtube channel, or your Twitter account.kSocial Media Icons displayed in the footer area of a WordPress site
• Google Analytics for WordPress – Enabled by the COFA Web team on the day your website goes live. To access analytic and visitor data about your site, please send a Gmail address to the COFA Web team. Discover the power of analytics data and start making data based decisions today.

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  Link Manager – This plug-in allows you to create a simple list of useful links that will be displayed on your website’s right-hand sidebar. To use this feature, simply click on the “Links” button in your left-hand Dashboard menu and select “Add New”. Once you have created your new link, view and edit your current list of links by selecting “All Links”.  The sidebar Links widget will be titled “Bookmarks” unless a link category is selected. We recommend setting the “Sort by” option to “Link Rating”.  Editors can add links and assign each one to a category and give them a rating.

• Flickr Gallery – Available upon request, this feature allows you to easily insert Flickr galleries on your site. Learn more by viewing our instructions for adding media from external services. Please be aware that there are accessibility issues related to Flickr and the COFA web team needs to be contacted to implement this feature.

 

• Slideshow Carousel plugins
  • Genesis Responsive Slider -This widget gives you the option to create a slideshow from featured posts & pages. It can be used in conjunction with the Homepage Feature Widget to create a hero image featured story area.
  •  Royal Slider – Is the main image and video slideshow carousel and is the University Blog Service’s (UBS) recommended option for replacing slideshows hosted in the now depreciated (and soon to be removed) WooSlider.

For more information about transferring your WooSlider slide shows to Royal Slider (and the scheduled removal of WooSlider) visit UBS’s informational blog post.

• Maintenance Mode – If you need to make drastic changes to your site we recommend using this plugin. It will place an announcement on your homepage telling your visitors your site is temporarily down for maintenance.
• “Teams” is a plugin that allow you to create rows and columns in a responsive grid layout. The typical use of the plugin is for creating a directory of people but it can be used creatively to solve many other layout needs.

The following Plugins are not recommended because they are out-of-date or currently don’t function as expected: FeedBurner Widget, FireStats,  MU Admin Bar

 Widgets

Advanced editors have access to a drag and drop Widgets page where they can assign blocks of content to different Template areas. Unfortunately, there is not a link to the Widgets interface. You can try adding /wp-admin/widgets.php to the end of your website root path to see if you have access. Also,  the Template label doesn’t usually match the name in the drop-down menu on the page editing screen, for example, Main Sidebar is the Default Template. The interface can be confusing so feel free to reach out to us for assistance.

• Search – Enabled by the COFA Web team. The search form for your site is required on all sites.
• Homepage Feature–  A WordPress for Texas theme only widget which adds a homepage only hero display, see demo here.
• Tag Cloud – Adds your most used Tags from blog or news items in a clickable cloud format.
• Text – Allows you to create a custom area to displays any text or HTML. Recommended for site-wide promotions and featured content. Examples can be found in the right sidebar of this page:
  • the graphic link to the Web Instruction site,
  • the text and link to the Achievements & Updates page and
  • the Contact Us text and email link.
• HTML – New option better suited to added custom HTML to your sidebar. This widget can also be used to embed a Twitter Timeline to your page’s sidebar.
• RSS – Display content from an RSS feed, usually from a different website. We have currently enabled this feature on all Butler School of Music WordPress site to display your Events feed.

  

• Recent Comments – Add a list of links to the most recent comments on your site. You must have comments enabled.

  

• Pages – Add a list of links to your site’s Pages.
• Ways to Display your News or Posts in the Sidebar
  • Archives – Add a list of links to each month of your blog or news items.
  • Calendar – Add a clickable calendar to link to your blog and news items.
  • Categories – Add a clickable list or drop-down menu of the Categories of your news or post pages.
  • Recent Posts – Add a list of links to the most recent blog or news items on your site.

• Meta – Add a list of links to log in or out, administer the site, RSS feeds, and WordPress links.

The following Widgets are not recommended because they are out-of-date or currently don’t function as expected: “Video Thumbnails” and “MiniTwitter” Plugin.